Even before the rebuild, one of the biggest holes for the Calgary Flames has been face-offs. This season, they're 30th in the league. Last season they were 28th. They were even 30th during Brent Sutter's last year as coach. Being bad at face-offs isn't a new phenomenon, and seems to be immune to changes in management, coaches or players.

Here's a brief situational look at how the Flames are doing at the face-off dot after 11 games.

NEUTRAL ZONE

Team-wide, the Flames win roughly 42% of face-offs at center ice. The breakdown among the regular centers is like this: Joe Colborne is at 47% (but has taken the least neutral zone draws), Mikael Backlund is 43%, Sean Monahan is 40% and Ben Street (now in Abbotsford) is at 31%. Matt Stajan's at 57%, but has only taken 23 draws (as opposed to Backlund's 65).

OFFENSIVE ZONE

Overall, the Flames are again at 42% in the offensive zone. Player-by-player, that breaks down to 57% for Street, 43% for Backlund, 63% for Monahan and a miserable 31% for Colborne. Monahan has taken the most offensive zone draws of the regular centers, while Colborne has not-shockingly taken the fewest. Stajan's at 58%, but has only taken a dozen draws in the offensive end.

DEFENSIVE ZONE

Arguably the most important zone to win your draws in, the Flames have had some success in the defensive zone – although they're still losing 52% of their draws and winning a mere 48%. Sean Monahan leads the regulars at 50%, followed by Backlund at 48%, Colborne at 47% and Street at 45%. Backlund's taken 87 of the team's 216 draws in their own end , which is a pretty big proportion (about 40%) and shows how he's been deployed by Bob Hartley thus far. Stajan's at 42% in his own zone through 19 draws.

EVEN STRENGTH

When things are even-keel, the Flames fare at 44% overall. The team's leaders are Stajan (50%), Street (46%), Monahan (45%), Backlund (43%) and Colborne (41%). Backlund takes the most of the team's even-strength draws (92), followed by Monahan at 70.

POWER PLAY

Overall, the Flames win 45% of their power-play draws. Curtis Glencross actually takes a number of these and has fared pretty well for somebody who's not a natural center. He's won 47%. Of the regular centers, Monahan takes the most power-play draws and, to be blunt, has been getting killed. He's won just 29% of his PP draws.

PENALTY KILL

The PK is where the Flames have been getting killed (in terms of getting scored on a lot) and they're not amazing in the face-off circle, winning just 44%. Matt Stajan has won 64% of his draws, followed by Backlund at 59% and Street at 23%. Backlund has taken the majority of Calgary's short-handed draws, which combined with his percentages make him pretty damn useful as a defensive player.

SUM IT UP

On the whole, Calgary's won about 44% of their face-offs, which places them dead-last in the NHL. Stajan's got the best team-wide winning percentage (at 52%), but he's also only played three games, so there's no telling where his percentages will end up over a longer span. Backlund leads the regulars at 45%, followed by Monahan and Colborne, both around 42%. Considering that Monahan and Colborne are both fairly inexperienced, they're likely to get better over time, but the team obviously has some work to do. They were excellent against Washington, so hopefully they can keep it up.

Ryan Pike has covered the Calgary Flames since 2010. A Calgary native who writes for FlamesNation and The Hockey Writers, he's often at Flames games and practices, as well as spotted in the background of scrums and press conferences asking about Sven Baertschi.

It may be somewhat of a surprise that Poirier is listed this high given some of the other high scorers in the CHL, but Poirier is thus far the most effective player in the Q. He has recorded four game-winning goals in the last three weeks. Poirier plays in all situations (he already has one short-handed goal), and can fight, if necessary. Poirier has posted points in 11 of the 13 games in which he has appeared, including all of the Olympiques October contests, and was recognized by the league as its First Star for the week of September 30th.

Klimchuk is not a sexy choice for a top-20 player in the CHL; he does not play on a team that is tearing up the league (Regina is right in the middle of the pack in the Eastern Conference) and he is not doing anything outstanding. What he does do is solidly contribute to every game. Currently leading the Pats in scoring (six goals, 12 assists in 13 games), Klimchuk is particularly effective on the power play.

Here's where nuance is lost in these stat discussions - no one is saying that cleanly losing or winning a draw in the offensive or defensive zone is meaningless. It can definitely have an impact, which is one of the reasons we correct for zone starts in possession rates.

The thing is everyone in general in the NHL is almost as good as everyone else at it. So unless a team or player is remarkably great or poor at it at, the overall impact over time is muted.

It's a meaningful distinction that is dissolved by the binary nature of these arguments.

For the Flames, I think the team needs to work on this aspect of the game because they are currently worst in the league. You definitely don't want to be at the wrong end of the distribution.

Young centers almost always suck at this, but the good news faceoffs are something a kid can improve at over time.

I find it interesting that this article appeared here. I remember at the end of last season, I posted on this site that the Flames needed to get better in the faceoff circle, and that I believed that drafting a kid named Monahan would probably help them at that (once he gets a little more experience at the NHL level, of course). That was immediately met with several posts claiming faceoffs don't matter, or at least, don't have any effect on winning. I just don't understand why it now matters... What's the deal?

Is it perhaps because now that our faceoff percentages are statistically horrible - instead of statistically brutal - people are now noticing how bad it is? 'Cause it's been bad for a loooooooong time.

'winning draws while shorthanded should mean that your penalty kill will have greater success. Right?

Surprisingly, that's wrong. The correlation of shorthanded faceoff percentage and penalty kill percentage is actually in the negative at -.17. Now these numbers don't confirm that the lower your faceoff percentage is the higher your PK percentage will be-- after all, correlation does not imply causation, and saying that you would be better off losing all your draws doesn't make sense at all. However, this is suggesting that, amongst the league as a whole, a good faceoff percentage does not equal a good kill over the course of a season'

Copper and Blue also has a nice round-up: http://www.coppernblue.com/2009/8/9/981552/defensive-zone-faceoffs-how-much

Basically, I'm not sure why we're focusing so much on faceoffs either, but I'd be open to enlightenment.

I think faceoffs are in the realm of physicality: they're nice to have if you can get them, but they shouldn't be a goal unto themselves. Don't get players solely as faceoff specialists, just as you shouldn't get players solely because they play physically. I imagine they do contribute overall to better possession, but the effect isn't large enough to warrant taking an inferior player who can win an extra 30 draws/season or whatever.

Faceoffs are potentially important, but the issue is teams and players tend to cluster so much in the middle that the differences don't tend to be meaningful. For instance, if you are a 50% player, you win 5 out of 10 draws on average. If you're a 40% player (which is a big shift in the NHL), you win...4 out of 10.

Where you gain or lose a true advantage is in the margins...so guys who are 60%+ or above probably bring real value over time. Similarly, guys south of 40% are a problem.

As for why we're tracking them...for interests sake in part, but also because it points perhaps to why Hartley is making certain decisions on the ice.

Where did Shinkaruk rank? What about Horvat? Many out there still would have prefered those picks.

Nurse is 8; neither Horvat or Shinkaruk is ranked in that top-20. I don't know if that says much. But it sure is nice to see Klimchuk and Poirier on the list. I also really like how both are considered "all situation" type players. That's awesome.

@J

I hear that! I was listening to the Troy Ward interview on the Fan today, and he raves about Knight - it seems like every coach he has loves him (which bodes well for his development, even if he's not quite there). The number one take away for me, was that he's able to change his game depending on the wingers he plays with - apparently he's very good at complimenting a variety of different 'styles' of play. Ward also said Knight is not flashy, but he's very sound all-around, and always happens to chip in - perhaps that's why he didn't necessarily stand-out in training camp, the rookie tourny, and rookie camp, yet he always seemed reliable and always seemed to contribute. I really like the players that can do that at a high level - they aren't a dime a dozen.

In fairness, it's probably premature at best to say they've been lucky 2 seasons in a row, when they've so far only played 61 games in the last '2 seasons'.

Let me know when we can say it. Seems that they have some very high end talent, mobile def, great goaltending and a very gritty team. Who built this team? Who traded for that Kessel and Gardiner and Franson, etc? Oh, and they have a pretty good win loss record despite the stats.

Don't tell that to Team Canada who picked Bergeron in the last Olympics as a defensive zone faceoff specialist. I understand what you're saying, but IMO a center who's no good at faceoffs is like a goalie who can't control rebounds - it's not all they're asked to do, but it is an important part of their job.

Pretty much what everyone else has added. I don't think faceoffs are meaningless, just that it's a minor part of the game, that is swamped by parity. Furthermore, it's rare to even have a clean win. Most often it's some messy scramble where it pops out somewhere non-ideal anyways

I'm of the belief that it's not irrelevant, just that, as far as team skills go, it's in one of the lower tiers of things I would focus on improving.

I don't understand why defencemen don't wear padded hockeys skates, for the majority of them, it won't make a difference in their skating ability. Is it better to get a puck off the ankle? Hobble around for a few minutes and hope nothing is broken? With Giordano out, there no depth player to replace him.

Nurse is 8; neither Horvat or Shinkaruk is ranked in that top-20. I don't know if that says much. But it sure is nice to see Klimchuk and Poirier on the list. I also really like how both are considered "all situation" type players. That's awesome.

@J

I hear that! I was listening to the Troy Ward interview on the Fan today, and he raves about Knight - it seems like every coach he has loves him (which bodes well for his development, even if he's not quite there). The number one take away for me, was that he's able to change his game depending on the wingers he plays with - apparently he's very good at complimenting a variety of different 'styles' of play. Ward also said Knight is not flashy, but he's very sound all-around, and always happens to chip in - perhaps that's why he didn't necessarily stand-out in training camp, the rookie tourny, and rookie camp, yet he always seemed reliable and always seemed to contribute. I really like the players that can do that at a high level - they aren't a dime a dozen.

I concur with those comments re: Knight. It will be interesting to see when Flames' management makes the shift from veterans to rookies. As much as Knight could play in the NHL right now, I can understand that getting top minutes in the AHL is valuable while the vets in the NHL eat up the top minutes (although they aren't supposed to win quite this much). Will they shift towards the youth by Christmas? Mid-season? After the trade deadline? Only if they are out of the playoff race? If I were running things, I would make room for him in the top 2 or 3 center positions with some PP or PK time sooner rather than later (ie by Christmas). And his faceoff skills are ridiculous - I heard from someone at the game that he went 9-1 last game.

Wow for some funny/sad stuff check out the Oilersnation. Those guys are in some kind of world of hurt right now...

ya, it isn't even fun razzing my oiler-fan friends anymore... but I did go to the Oilersnation sight... just because of all the oiler fans over the last couple years who were mocking the flames for "how bad they would be" and bragging about "how good theoilers are GOING to be".

Oiler fans have actually been amusing the last couple years. I'll refer to it as oiler math and it goes like this: we won more cups in the past + we are going to win way more in the future = we are even better then you now even though we suck. that was the last two years... but the last few weeks I am hearing a level of silence which I've never heard before.

Poor Dubnyk is a perfectly adequate goalie, but playing behind that defense is going to hurt anyone's stats.

Then you have the Leafs who somehow managed to get two excellent goaltenders. I still think that trading for Bernier when they already had Reimer was odd, but it certainly means that they rarely have a weak game in net. Bizarre.

The Leafs are a bad team, but legitimately elite goaltending basically throws all statistical analysis out the window. I doubt that both Reimer and Bernier are actually .930+ goalies... but man oh man do the Leafs have it good in net.

The Oilers, the freakin' Oilers!!!, outshot Toronto 43:26. That's how bad the Leafs are. The Leafs are so utterly horrendous that they're actually behind Edmonton in almost every advanced stat except PDO! Their goal-tending has been insane so far this season. Reimer is 0.949 and Bernier is 0.930 so far. I don't care what people are saying about the quality of shots Toronto allows, that is unsustainable. Meanwhile, Edmonton played a sub-MacBackup quality AHL'er who got lucky in one game against the Kings.

I was honestly afraid the Oilers would win. I normally pull for Edmonton, but only when it doesn't negatively impact the Flames. Being beaten by the Oilers is a freakin' wake-up call. A call to arms! A cocktail shot of rage, shame, self-loathing, and adrenaline all rolled into one! Had the Leafs lost tonight they would have been a handful tomorrow. Fortunately, they won, and will be feeling as cocky as they've been feeling all season, despite sucking utterly.

The Flames will dominate the Leafs tomorrow night. The only question now is if their insane luck in net will continue.

2nd year in a row the leafs have been lucky despite what the advanced stats say the should be. Hmmmm

Let me know when we can say it. Seems that they have some very high end talent, mobile def, great goaltending and a very gritty team. Who built this team? Who traded for that Kessel and Gardiner and Franson, etc? Oh, and they have a pretty good win loss record despite the stats.

I do agree in part, at least, about their percentages falling. The Leafs, as much as it pains me to say it, have been playing pretty good puck regardless of the stats - and I really dislike that team. They have a little bit of that never say die attitude, and they also seem to bring it when they're "outmatched in skill". We shall see if they can keep it up though.

did anyone else get a goood chuckle
during the recent (flames or oilers?) game when the camera showed some kid sticking his tongue between the glass into the players bench, and the commentator noted he could be glad that it wasnt craig mctavish behind the bench.

'winning draws while shorthanded should mean that your penalty kill will have greater success. Right?

Surprisingly, that's wrong. The correlation of shorthanded faceoff percentage and penalty kill percentage is actually in the negative at -.17. Now these numbers don't confirm that the lower your faceoff percentage is the higher your PK percentage will be-- after all, correlation does not imply causation, and saying that you would be better off losing all your draws doesn't make sense at all. However, this is suggesting that, amongst the league as a whole, a good faceoff percentage does not equal a good kill over the course of a season'

Copper and Blue also has a nice round-up: http://www.coppernblue.com/2009/8/9/981552/defensive-zone-faceoffs-how-much

Basically, I'm not sure why we're focusing so much on faceoffs either, but I'd be open to enlightenment.

It's tough to make a direct statistical correlation, but just from the eyes-test there is importance to faceoffs. If we're going to use 'advanced stats' to discuss possession, and likewise chart possession to be a reasonable judge of player quality, I don't understand why an act that can instantly determine whether or not you have possession (the majority of the time) is overlooked with such determinism.

I understand the statistics are difficult to chart with regard to faceoff wins and losses, as often the effects of a won or lost faceoff occur a good deal of time after the faceoff was won or lost (ie: a powerplay that works the puck around the zone for a minute before a goal is scored), or is fairly minimal in terms of not being on the ice (ie: a won faceoff following an icing, when the line that iced the puck has been on for a long shift).

I'm not saying faceoffs are the penultimate judge of player value, but I've never been one to argue that it is not an important part of the game. If you actually think that losing a defensive zone faceoff on a penalty kill is something to slough-off as unimportant (regardless of cherry-picked stats) - then I certainly take issue with that view, as we've seen it time and time again with the post-Yelle Flames.

My guess would be Billins, actually. They brought him in this summer, and he's been putting in good work with the farm team (ie. maybe they want to reward him). Moreover, they don't lose anything (developmentally speaking) by playing him very little (or not at all).

The Oilers, the freakin' Oilers!!!, outshot Toronto 43:26. That's how bad the Leafs are. The Leafs are so utterly horrendous that they're actually behind Edmonton in almost every advanced stat except PDO! Their goal-tending has been insane so far this season. Reimer is 0.949 and Bernier is 0.930 so far. I don't care what people are saying about the quality of shots Toronto allows, that is unsustainable. Meanwhile, Edmonton played a sub-MacBackup quality AHL'er who got lucky in one game against the Kings.

I was honestly afraid the Oilers would win. I normally pull for Edmonton, but only when it doesn't negatively impact the Flames. Being beaten by the Oilers is a freakin' wake-up call. A call to arms! A cocktail shot of rage, shame, self-loathing, and adrenaline all rolled into one! Had the Leafs lost tonight they would have been a handful tomorrow. Fortunately, they won, and will be feeling as cocky as they've been feeling all season, despite sucking utterly.

The Flames will dominate the Leafs tomorrow night. The only question now is if their insane luck in net will continue.

Watching that game, I'm not sure if 'a' legitimate defenseman is going to help. Even if that happens, they're still going to need to play some semblance of team defense. Their forwards hardly backcheck, and it looks like they're breaking out of their zone before they even have possession of the puck on the backend. Boy oh boy, what a mess it is up there - I almost feel bad for them.

It's also an incredibly small proportion of time within the game. If there are, for sake of argument, fifty faceoffs per game, that's maybe a couple of minutes of the game. It affects initial possession, but there's a lot of time in-between faceoffs for possession to be gained or lost; and that's more important, in an overall sense. It's why, to use the Team Canada argument earlier, Team Canada invited Bergeron as a defensive faceoff guy rather than Malholtra; they're both amazing on the dot, but Bergeron is an elite two-way player whereas Maltholtra is not Olympic calibre.

This comment makes me sad, because I can't give it more than 1 Like.

The faceoff stat describes a moment in time that lasts about 1 second. After that, the faceoff stat doesn't describe what is happening in the game.

No one is arguing that a team can't have consistently elite goaltending (not saying the Leafs do, but it is something that is repeatable). A team can have its PDO legitimately inflated by playing in front of an excellent starting goaltender, or pair of goaltenders.

The big thing is team shooting percentage - some teams have legitimately higher ones than average, but so far not to the extent that the Leafs do. Remember, their current team SH% is outstripping the Penguins, a team where the majority of the offense goes through Crosby (league high on-ice SH% talent), Malkin (less good, but still high on-ice SH% talent), and Neal (high personal SH%).

It's not entirely impossible, but I would be willing to eat multiple hats if the Leafs have managed to put together a team that legitimately (not by variance) scores on a greater proportion of its chances than the team with two of the top 3 offensive players (centres, no less) in the world on it.

The Leafs believe in the quality of the shot as opposed to number of shots and Carlyle comes right out and says that. They play a tight zone in their end that allows perimeter shots. On offense, it could be argued that beyond Crosby and Malkin, the next 5 best offensive forwards would be on the Leafs between those 2 teams as well as a superior group offensively from the blueline as well. So, if they are generating quality chances, you may see them do better than the Pens. It comes down to whether you accept that a shot is a shot or whether you buy Carlyle's system that is borrowed from the Soviet style of the late 70's, early 80's.

Faceoffs are potentially important, but the issue is teams and players tend to cluster so much in the middle that the differences don't tend to be meaningful. For instance, if you are a 50% player, you win 5 out of 10 draws on average. If you're a 40% player (which is a big shift in the NHL), you win...4 out of 10.

I agree with you. I think the big thing with faceoffs is situational, so that would have to be part of a statistical calculation. Obviously, a faceoff at centre-ice or the blue-line dots is going to have far less of a burden on the outcome of a game than a faceoff in either your offensive/defensive zone will. I think it's entirely pragmatic to want your top centreman to win those big defensive faceoffs, just like you want him to be able to win those offensive zone faceoffs on a PP. Chasing the puck into your own zone every time you start a PP is far less desirable than getting set up with possession.

I like the stat, and I hope it keeps up - but the reason I'm so passionate about it is likely because I played centre my whole life, so I get it far more than other positions.

It's also an incredibly small proportion of time within the game. If there are, for sake of argument, fifty faceoffs per game, that's maybe a couple of minutes of the game. It affects initial possession, but there's a lot of time in-between faceoffs for possession to be gained or lost; and that's more important, in an overall sense. It's why, to use the Team Canada argument earlier, Team Canada invited Bergeron as a defensive faceoff guy rather than Malholtra; they're both amazing on the dot, but Bergeron is an elite two-way player whereas Maltholtra is not Olympic calibre.

I think we could send Butler back to Buffalo in that trade. We are strong with LW prospects, if we sent Klimchuk their way, would those two be enough to get it done?

Meyers has had a tough go after his rookie year but is currently averaging 21 minutes of ice time and he is just 23 years old (still fits the rebuild mode)

This would soften the blow until Gio returns at which point our D would look really solid.

Can you imagine if we put Kanzig on a pairing with Meyers down the road? Opposing forwards can't wait to jump back on the bench!

5.5 million till 2019? That's a pretty high price to pay for a player who seems to be regressing. In many ways I like the idea because of his age and size. i would not be prepared to trade a high end forward or too high of a draft pick. How about a do over, they can have Butler and Byron back plus a couple of our extra forwards, B Jones and Rhino and we get Meyers, that way they will be assured of winning the lottery.